a spreading of wings, a bating of breath, a sense of something coming

Consummation

Three days before the departure are farewells I never thought I’d say. Never thought I’d get the chance. Never heard coming from my mouth. And yet, here we are face-to-face again, you and I. The songs you wrote are still in there, tucked away where time and memory will not eat away at them. One chord struck and I know that I know the words. Words I’ve never bothered to sing before, until now. Until this end.

The wind blows strong against my back, and this time, I am facing in the right direction.
The storm pulls closer, but this time, the air is cool against my face, my burning chest, my red and swollen eyes that stare not into the dread of it coming – but into the dry path ahead.

Soon, we will be drenched and crying.
For only the rain can take this life.

And yet, as we stand there warm against the wind, drenched out in the rain, we know.
These pleasant moments, these happy things, these experiences do not ever leave us.
Like your songs they hum in the back of our heads, like espresso they sink in and stain our skin, like food they dissolve into innumerable pieces of ourselves.

I will never forget this place, these people, these things.

Sugar Tits and Sunny Day and Crema, Northwest, Northeast, the parks and the rain and the flurries of snow on the roof of Tea Chai Te are a part of me, innumerable, inextricable, inseparable.

Just as spinning crepes have never left my wrist, my hand, my bones.
All the places I have been and all the things that I have made and all the roles that I have played.

Despite all the things I have willfully removed.
The brightness of the sun on their sheen I will keep for me.